Culture Surfing

BURN BABY BURN: Lily Morgan (left) and John Cusack

GENRE: Disaster movie on a planetary scale

THE PITCH: Technobabble about solar flares plus mumbo-jumbo about Mayan predictions equals catastrophes that could destroy all life on Earth, even movie stars. A White House science advisor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a novelist/limo driver (John Cusack), his ex-wife (Amanda Peet), and a shaggy conspiracy theorist (Woody Harrelson) all try to keep ahead of the fireballs and falling skyscrapers.

MONEY SHOTS: Director Roland Emmerich remains the John Holmes of disaster porn. Highlights include the heroes out-driving a Los Angeles earthquake; a volcanic eruption at Yellowstone; a tidal wave crashing over a Tibetan mountain range; and the Sistine Chapel ceiling cracking between God and Adam’s fingers. (Oh, burn!) A tsunami flattens the White House with the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, proving what you’ve always suspected: Bad weather has a sense of irony.

Continue Reading “Hollywood Product: 2012“

(Photo Courtesy 2009 Columbia TriStar Marketing Group, Inc.)

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THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: John Benzinger and Rachel Garner in Fair Use

We should totally call dibs on Dad’s Garage Theatre’s Large Animal Games and Actor’s Express’s Fair Use as home-grown plays. Neither takes place in Atlanta and neither playwright currently lives here, but the local theater community can claim bragging rights to the world premieres of both witty comedies.

Large Animal Games takes its bow as part of a full season of new plays developed “in-house” at Dad’s Garage, although the company shares the co-world premiere of Large Animal Games with Impact Theatre of Berkeley, Calif. Writer Steve Yockey, currently playwright-in-residence at Marin Theatre Company, has long been a member of the “artistic family” of Dad’s, Out of Hand Theatre and Actor’s Express (as well as, briefly, a Creative Loafing employee). Fair Use by Chicago’s Sarah Gubbins was a finalist in the Alliance Theatre’s Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, a national award that’s been cultivating a new generation of theatrical talents for more than half a decade.

Continue Reading “Upwardly Mobile”

(Photo Courtesy Chris Ozment Photography)

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BLAZE OF GLORY: Murder becomes reality-TV fodder in Five Minutes of Heaven.

Even if you’ve never heard the name Oliver Hirschbiegel, there’s a strong chance you’ve seen his work. The German filmmaker directed Downfall, the superb 2004 drama about the Third Reich’s final days. Last year, a clip of Bruno Ganz’s Hitler chewing out his underlings became a YouTube hit when an online prankster rewrote the subtitles so the scene depicted then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton raging against her campaign staff. Now you can find dozens of remixes that show Adolf hating on, say, the Avatar trailer.

Hirschbiegel can’t claim credit or blame for the pop appropriation of Downfall, but the original scene’s dramatic power no doubt supports its viral following. Downfall’s depiction of the besieged Nazis combined epic battle scenes with more soft-spoken moments that illuminated Hitler’s historical legacy, such as Frau Goebbels quietly killing her own children rather than have them see an Allied victory. Hirschbiegel’s latest film, Five Minutes of Heaven, treats a confrontation between two men as another kind of microcosm for a historic event: the violence in Northern Ireland.

Continue Reading “Five Minutes of Heaven goes mano a mano with Northern Ireland conflict”

(Photo Courtesy Reconciliation Limited 2009/An IFC Films release)

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The “Dexter” Season 4 episode reviews have been shrink-wrapped to an autopsy table in an unknown location, and will have to be postponed indefinitely. Let’s kill time before the rescue with the new hardback Dexter By Design (Doubleday, $25) and consider how Michael C. Hall’s secret serial killer resembles the original creation of writer Jeff Lindsay.

The author introduced the perfectly-assimilated predatory sociopath in Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Published in 2004, the award-winning mystery served, rather loosely, as the basis for the 12 episodes of the Showtime series’ first season. Since then, the show’s continuity has diverged dramatically from the books. Sgt. Doakes, Dexter’s Javert-like police nemesis, was killed in the show’s second season but still lives on the page, if in a horribly maimed fashion. From Dexter’s perspective as the first-person narrator, his homicidal impulses, nicknamed “The Dark Passenger” manifests more like a secondary personality who keeps watch on Dexter’s consciousness.

The fourth book, like the show’s fourth season, begins with Dexter married to Rita, only Dexter by Design first finds the couple as newlyweds in Paris, not as sleep-deprived parents of a new infant. Dexter by Design sees our antihero thoroughly pwned by a pranksterish nutjob with a grisly artistic bent. Miami’s latest human butcher puts dead bodies on display in ghastly parody of South Florida tourist behavior. (Lindsay makes a passing nod to Carl Hiassen’s Tourist Season, which features a home-grown terrorist cell with similar anti-tourist motivations.) Staying one step ahead, the killer discovers Dexter’s true identity and targets his loved ones.

Continue reading “‘Dexter’ vs. Dexter” »

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LOOSE ROPE: Rope 'em, cowboy.

Following on the hooves of The Men Who Stare at Goats, the Iranian culture-clash dramedy Loose Rope depicts young fellows transfixed by other kinds of livestock.

Part of the High Museum’s 12th annual Iranian Film Today series, Loose Rope gets a lot of mileage from the easy interplay of Mikhail and Asgar (Babak Hamidian, Keramat Roudsaz), two pals who deliver animals in the rural outskirts of Tehran. With Mikhail as a mature, ambitious man of few words and Asgar as an impulsive motormouth, they maintain the dynamic of a classic comedy team. Despite Mikhail’s wish to start a new business, the pair falls behind on payments for their truck, which their creditor threatens to repossess unless they bring him a 450-pound cow.

Before the bovine adventure takes hold, Loose Rope follows another subplot involving sheep. Mikhail and Asgar discover a sneak who digs up recently deceased sheep that he sells to an unscrupulous restaurateur in violation of halal practices (and basic sanitation), which prohibit even sick animals from being served as food. Mikhail establishes himself as a decent fellow by putting an end to the sheep “grave-robbing,” while director Mehrshad Karkhani entices the viewer with quiet action scenes and occasional animal-based sight gags.

Continue Reading “Seriocomic Loose Rope seeks bovine intervention”

(Photo Courtesy High Museum)

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If you were to hear opera singer David Daniels’ voice before you saw him perform, you might make a mistaken guess as to his gender. Countertenors such as Daniels sing in a vocal range usually associated with sopranos and other classical female singing styles. Daniels’ renowned approach has redefined the countertenor style for a new generation of opera audiences. The first countertenor to give a solo recital in the main auditorium of Carnegie Hall, Daniels sings the role of Orpheus in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo & Euridice at the Atlanta Opera, Nov. 14, 17, 20 and 22.

How young were you when you began singing as a boy soprano?
I think I remember singing when I was 3 or 4 years old. It was probably more like screaming and driving my older brother crazy. He plays the cello, so he’s the only one in my family who doesn’t sing. My mother was a soprano, my father a baritone, and they both taught voice at Converse College. My mother taught me to sing in my “head voice.” I sang professionally as a boy soprano probably from age 9 to 16. Even though my voice changed, I kept the ability to sing this way as a teenager. Now I’m 43, and I still sing this way.

Continue Reading “Speakeasy with David Daniels”

(Photo Courtesy the Atlanta Opera)

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TRANCE-PARENT STORYTELLING: Lyn Cassady (George Clooney, from left), Mahmud Daash (Waleed Zuaiter) and Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) in The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats begins with a wonderful disclaimer: “More of this is true than you would believe.” Most films use phrases like “Based on a true story” or “Inspired by actual events” as a fig leaf for outrageous liberties with little connection to reality. The real incidents behind The Men Who Stare at Goats indeed seem stranger than fiction, but the demands of formulaic three-act screenwriting sabotage the film’s mission.

Based on the book of the same name by Welsh journalist and documentarian Jon Ronson, the film completely reimagines Ronson as Michigan reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor). Personal crises inspire Wilton to attempt to cover the 2002 invasion of Iraq. While languishing in Kuwait City and envying the embedded war correspondents, Wilton meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). Cassady turns out to be a veteran of the U.S. Army’s First Earth Battalion, which attempted to train psychic soldiers.

Continue Reading “Too baaad Goats falls flat”

(Photo Courtesy Laura Macgruder/Westgate Film Services, LLC.)

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A LIFE IN THE THEATRE: Robert (André De Shields, from left) and John (Ariel Shafir) discuss their lives as actors.

In David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre, veteran actor Robert (André De Shields) asks rising newcomer John (Ariel Shafir), “Could you perhaps do less?” in one of their scenes together. Theater professionals and fans will immediately recognize the insult, scarcely disguised by the veneer of politeness.

“Doing less” isn’t a goal of the Alliance Theatre’s production of Mamet’s thorny bouquet to thespians and stage lovers. Challenged to expand an intimate two-actor drama for the Alliance mainstage, director Robert O’Hara turns the show, in part, into a satire of contemporary theatrical spectacle in which more is less. Many scenes take place in the actors’ dressing room, but in this spare-no-expense version, the dressing room set elevates out of the floor.

Continue reading “Spectacle upstages script in Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre“

(Photo courtesy Alliance Theatre)

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Ever since I saw Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, I’ve been trying to think of a quip that riffs on the unwieldy title. If other movies follow suit, will we see such titles as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End: Based on the theme park ride by Disneyworld? As usual, the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane provided the wittiest line:

Please make sure, when you buy a ticket for Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, to pronounce the title in full. I know you will. There was a plan to call it “Push,” until another movie got there first. But why not call the new one “Precious,” and leave it at that? After all, Deborah Kerr didn’t star in The Innocents: Based on the Novella ‘The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, and Dustin Hoffman didn’t star in Rain Man: Based on the Overwhelming Desire to Win an Academy Award by Dustin Hoffman, so why the change in rubric?

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Just ahead of this week’s premiere of Hillary Clinton Got Me Pregnant, a one-woman show by the often hilarious Megan Gogerty, Synchronicity Theatre artistic director (and mother of newborn twins) Rachel May has announced the removal of the last two shows of the company’s 12th season:

Due to the financial climate, Synchronicity has had to make some adjustments to our 09/10 season. We will unfortunately be indefinitely postponing the last 2 shows of our season: Dead Man’s Cell Phone and The Brand New Kid. We look forward to programming these shows (with the terrific production teams and casts we have assembled) in future seasons.

The remainder of the Synchronicity’s 12th season (which began with a terrific version of the family show Bunnicula) stays in place, including an updated version of the company’s acclaimed Women + War and the kid’s classic Free To Be You and Me.

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FAMILY JEWEL: Precious (Gabourey Sidibe, from left) and her oppressive mother Mary (Mo'Nique)

Though only 17 years old, Clareece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) suffers enough misfortunes for several Greek tragedies remounted in 1987 Harlem. Precious’ title character endures obesity, illiteracy, a baby with Down syndrome and a sociopathically hostile, selfish mother (Mo’Nique) — and those are just the preliminaries. When Precious gets warmed up, it becomes almost unbearably grim, but its passionate performances raise it above contemporary motivational melodrama clichés.

Though she can barely read, Precious exhibits a talent for math. When she becomes pregnant for the second time, a kindly teacher secures Precious a chance to enroll in an alternative school called Each One, Teach One. Under the tough but kindly tutelage of crusading Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious bonds with her boisterous female classmates and begins to respect herself.

Continue Reading “Grim Precious treasures passionate actresses”

(Photo Courtesy Lionsgate)

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LEARNING CURVES: Jenny (Carey Mulligan, from left) and David (Peter Sarsgaard) in An Education

The establishment seems more firmly established in England than anywhere else. Two terrific new British films depict prodigiously intelligent characters who challenge entrenched English institutions and nearly outsmart themselves along the way. The protagonists of the soccer movie The Damned United and the coming-of-age romance An Education fit in the rebellious, angry young man tradition of English drama — although Michael Sheen’s Brian Clough isn’t exactly young, and Carey Mulligan’s Jenny is most definitely not a man. Both learn the lesson that pride goeth before a fall.

The Damned United ostensibly recounts the David-and-Goliath rivalry between soccer division cellar-dwellers Derby County and England’s crowning team, Leeds United. Rather than focus on triumph-of-the-underdog clichés, screenwriter Peter Morgan cuts back and forth between Clough (Derby’s manager) leading the team from obscurity to soccer glory beginning in 1968, to Clough, flush with victory, taking over as Leeds’ manager in 1974. Morgan wrote The Queen and Frost/Nixon (which also starred Sheen) and ignores biopic stereotypes in lieu of small but telling historical tipping points.

Continue Reading “Damned United and An Education pit youthful smarts against English establishment”

(Photo Courtesy Kerry Brown/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)

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THE PAINS OF BEING RAW AT HEART: Willem Dafoe as He (from left) and Charlotte Gainsbourg as She in Antichrist

I can’t truly say I enjoyed watching a man nail his penis to a wooden board in the 1997 documentary Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist. I can’t even truly say I saw more than brief glimpses before I averted my eyes, as if confronted by a solar eclipse. Nevertheless, the close-up atrocity summed up the obsessions and life experiences of a self-punishing performance artist with a fatal case of cystic fibrosis and a surprisingly tender marriage.

Lars von Trier’s Antichrist eventually reveals how unguarded genitalia hold up against carpentry utensils, but without the justification of Sick’s humanism or thematic clarity. An instantly notorious award-winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Antichrist proves to be an alternately draggy, repellant and opaque cinematic experience, while clearly representing devoted efforts from several master screen artists. Were Antichrist a piece of hackwork, so to speak, it’d be easy to dismiss.

Continue Reading “Antichrist canonizes genital mutilation”

(Photo Courtesy Trust Nordisk ApS/An IFC Films release)

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John Lithgow as "Trinity" (second from right): Killer knows best

A side effect of the Trinity plot on this season of “Dexter” is that it makes the new remake of The Stepfather, starring Dylan Walsh, seem even more superfluous than it already was. The original Stepfather offered a dark satire of suburbia and the 1980s cult of family values, with a terrific performance by Terry O’Quinn (these days zipping between life and death on “Lost”) as a Ward Cleaver-wannabe who butchers his families whenever they, inevitably, reveal human flaws.

The PG-13 remake of The Stepfather seems to be vanishing with barely a trace, while John Lithgow’s Trinity killer, a.k.a. Arthur Mitchell, offers a vivid, fresh portrayal of an upstanding, all-American middle-aged male who happens to be a homicidal monster. This week’s episode, “If I Had a Hammer,” fills in the outline of Trinity’s life (I’ll call him “Trinity” for convenience sake) as husband, father of two, high school teacher, deacon at “Sacred Fellowship” church and organizer of the community home-building project called “Four Walls, One Heart.” “If I Had a Hammer” opens not with the Pete Seeger/Lee Hays protest song of the same name but the hymn “Are You Washed in the Blood?” The blood symbolism isn’t exactly subtle, but the song gives Lithgow a chance to zestfully sing an old-school church song.

Continue reading “‘Dexter’: Season 4, Episode 6″ »

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